Boundaries come up a lot in coaching.
But actually, they come up almost everywhere.
I hear it when I’m talking to friends about their workplaces. I hear it from people working across services. I hear it in conversations with leaders and managers.
People working well beyond their contracted hours.
People checking emails while they’re on holiday.
People who feel like they’re permanently on call.
People dropping everything because someone else has decided that something is urgent.
People trying to concentrate on a piece of work while simultaneously responding to emails, Teams messages, WhatsApps and phone calls.
And people spending far too much energy trying to work out what someone actually wants from them because expectations haven’t been clearly communicated in the first place.
We talk a lot about burnout and wellbeing at work.
I think we need to talk much more about boundaries.
Boundaries are not about caring less
I think sometimes we associate having good boundaries with being less committed.
If I don’t reply to that email tonight, will people think I don’t care?
If I don’t answer that message while I’m on annual leave, will I look unhelpful?
If someone asks me to do something urgently, can I really say that I don’t have capacity?
If my manager works until 10pm, should I be doing that too?
And gradually, the exceptional becomes normal.
You answer one email while you’re on holiday.
You stay late because something genuinely urgent has happened.
You respond to a message at the weekend.
None of those things in isolation necessarily causes a problem.
The problem comes when they become the expectation rather than the exception.
Because once you’ve demonstrated that you’re always available, it can become incredibly difficult to reclaim that space.
We have never been more contactable
I think technology has made some of this harder.
There are now so many ways for someone to get our attention.
Email.
Teams.
WhatsApp.
Phone calls.
Video calls.
Social media.
Notifications appearing on our phones while we’re doing something completely unrelated to work.
Being contactable is not the same thing as being available.
And being available is not the same thing as being effective.
There are times when the best thing I can do for my work is make myself unavailable.
If I need to concentrate on something that requires proper thought, I’ll block time in my diary. I’ll let people know that I’m going to be unavailable and I’ll get my head down and do it.
That isn’t me being inaccessible.
It’s me recognising what I need in order to do the work well.
We shouldn’t have to apologise for that.
Not everything is urgent
This is another one that comes up frequently.
Someone else’s urgency can very quickly become ours.
Sometimes, of course, things genuinely are urgent. Leadership involves responding to unexpected situations and there will always be occasions when plans have to change.
But not everything can be urgent.
And if everything is treated as urgent, we lose the ability to distinguish what actually matters most.
I’ve seen people completely rearrange their day because an email arrives with an urgent request.
I’ve seen people abandon the piece of work they had deliberately set time aside to complete because someone else suddenly needs something.
Sometimes that’s necessary.
Sometimes it’s simply a pattern we’ve fallen into.
One of the questions I’ve learned to ask myself is:
Does this actually need to happen now?
Not: Would somebody like it now?
Not: Could I technically do it now?
But: Does it genuinely need to happen now?
Those are very different questions.
This can’t all sit with the individual
This is where I think conversations about boundaries sometimes become too simplistic.
We tell people:
You need to switch off.
You need to say no.
You need to manage your workload.
You need better boundaries.
And sometimes that’s absolutely true.
There are boundaries that only we can set for ourselves.
But it’s very difficult to tell someone to switch off when their manager emails them throughout their annual leave.
It’s difficult to tell someone not to work excessive hours when the workload they’ve been given cannot reasonably be completed within their contracted time.
It’s difficult to tell someone they don’t need to respond immediately when their experience tells them that their manager expects an immediate response.
And it’s difficult to ask people to manage their own priorities when nobody has been clear with them about what those priorities actually are.
We can’t make workplace wellbeing entirely the responsibility of the individual while ignoring the environment they’re working in.
What are you modelling?
For me, this is where leadership really matters.
Because people pay attention to what we do.
Far more than we sometimes realise.
You can tell your team that you don’t expect them to respond to emails outside working hours.
But if you’re emailing them every night at 10pm, what message are you actually sending?
You can encourage people to take their annual leave.
But if you spend your own holiday checking in, joining meetings and responding to messages, what are you modelling?
You can tell people that their wellbeing matters.
But if the people who stay latest, answer fastest and make themselves permanently available are the people who receive the most praise, what behaviour are you really rewarding?
There can be a huge gap between “do what I say” and “do what I do.”
And culture is usually shaped much more by the second one.
Clarity is a boundary too
Clear communication is part of creating healthy boundaries.
People shouldn’t have to spend their time reading between the lines.
They shouldn’t have to guess whether something is urgent.
They shouldn’t have to work out what their manager meant by a vague instruction.
And they shouldn’t have to constantly second-guess whether they’re meeting an expectation that nobody has actually articulated.
Clarity reduces unnecessary anxiety.
If something has a deadline, say what it is.
If something is genuinely urgent, explain why.
If there is flexibility, say that too.
If you don’t expect someone to respond outside their working hours, make that clear – and then behave consistently with it.
Good leadership shouldn’t require people to become experts in interpreting us.
Sometimes setting a boundary takes courage
Of course, even in a healthy workplace, setting boundaries isn’t always comfortable.
Saying:
I don’t have capacity to take that on right now.
I’m on leave next week, so I won’t be checking my emails.
I’ve blocked this afternoon to concentrate on this piece of work.
I can do that, but something else will need to move.
Can you help me understand which of these priorities should come first?
Those conversations can feel uncomfortable, particularly if you’re working in a culture where boundaries aren’t being demonstrated by the people above you.
And that’s where I think coaching can be particularly useful.
Sometimes the challenge isn’t knowing what boundary you need.
You already know.
The challenge is giving yourself permission to set it, working through what you’re worried might happen if you do, and finding a way to communicate it clearly and confidently.
Creating the conditions
As leaders, I think our responsibility goes further than encouraging people to look after themselves.
We need to create the conditions that make it possible.
That means being realistic about workloads.
Being clear about priorities.
Respecting people’s time away from work.
Not creating unnecessary urgency.
Allowing people uninterrupted time to think and concentrate.
Being consistent about what we expect.
And perhaps most importantly, demonstrating those things ourselves.
I’m certainly not perfect at this.
There will be times when I work longer because something needs done. There will be times when something unexpected requires my attention. That’s part of working life and particularly part of leadership.
But the question is whether the exception is quietly becoming the norm.
There’s a big difference between occasionally going above and beyond and working in a way that is fundamentally unsustainable.
Look at what people have learned from you
If you’re a leader or line manager, I think there’s a useful question to reflect on:
If everyone in my team copied the way I work, would I be happy with the culture we’d create?
Would everyone work excessive hours?
Would everyone check their emails on holiday?
Would everyone respond immediately to every notification?
Would people feel able to say they don’t have capacity?
Would they know when something genuinely was urgent?
Would they protect time to think?
Would they actually switch off?
We can have all the wellbeing policies, initiatives and messages we like.
But people will learn what is really expected of them by watching what happens around them.
And particularly by watching us.
Boundaries aren’t just an individual responsibility.
They’re something we create together.
And if we’re serious about wanting people to do good work without burning themselves out in the process, we need workplace cultures that make healthy boundaries possible.
If this resonated with you…
If you’re finding yourself constantly available, struggling to protect your time or knowing that you need stronger boundaries but finding it difficult to hold them, coaching can give you the space to work through what’s getting in the way.
And if you’re a leader thinking about the culture you’re creating for others, it can also provide space to reflect on what you’re modelling and whether it’s creating the conditions you actually want for your team.
If you’d like some space to think about that, you’re very welcome to join me for a complimentary chat about it.
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